La straniera (The Foreign Woman) is an opera in two acts with music by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on the novel L'Étrangère (2 vols, 1825) by Charles-Victor Prévot, vicomte d'Arlincourt, although writer Herbert Weinstock also adds that it is "more likely [based on] a dramatization of [that novel] in Italian by Giovan Carlo, barone di Cosenza" since he then quotes a letter from Bellini to his friend Francesco Florimo in which he says that Romani "certainly will not follow the play" [suggesting then that they were aware of its existence.] The opera was composed in the autumn of 1828 and premiered on 14 February 1829 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Composition history Historical background At the heart of the plot of this opera is a complicated series of historical events beginning at the end of the twelfth century. King Philip Augustus of France (Philip II of France) married the Danish princess Ingeborg in 1193. For unknown reasons, he separated from her the day after the wedding and sought an annulment from Pope Celestine III. Ingeborg, however, insisted that the marriage had been consummated, and that she was his wife and the rightful Queen of France. Philip ultimately obtained an annulment through an assembly of French bishops. He then sought to marry Marguerite, daughter of William I, Count of Geneva, but she was kidnapped on the way to Paris by Thomas I of Savoy, who married her instead. Ultimately, in 1196 Philip married Agnes of Merania ("la straniera"), the daughter of a nobleman, Bertold IV of Dalmatia. Denmark continued to complain about Philip's treatment of Ingeborg and in 1200 Pope Innocent III required Philip to take her back, rendering him essentially a bigamist and subject to excommunication. Agnes died in 1201, however, ending the threat of excommunication. Adjustments to the story in order to create the libretto Bellini and his librettist Romani took tremendous liberties with this already unusual story and devised a plot where the King, in order to resolve the problem of his double marriage, sends Agnes to live at a cottage on Lake Montolino. Philip then sends her brother to secretly watch over her, while masquerading under the name Valdeburgo. Agnes has assumed the name of Alaide and hides under a veil. Count Arturo has fallen in love with her, in spite of his engagement to Isoletta, daughter of the